IPT Cancer Treatment

IPT cancer treatment is another in the long and ever-growing line of quack cancer treatments that offer no benefits but do endanger the health of the patient.

Insulin potentiation therapy, also known as IPT or IPT cancer treatment, is a dangerous, experimental, and scientifically unsupported form of cancer treatment.

What is it?

In IPT, a cancer patient receives doses of the biological drug insulin, used by people with diabetes, at the same time that they receive chemotherapy. It is predicated on the unproven and mistaken notion that by combining chemotherapy with insulin, less chemotherapy is necessary because insulin somehow allows more of the chemotherapeutic drug into the cell.

First developed in the 1930's, IPT reached the mainstream among alternative treatments during the mid 1980s, according to Robert Baratz, M.D., writing for Quackwatch. It was pitched on the idea that insulin can 'open the pores' of cells, therefore requiring significantly less chemotherapy than normal, somewhere along the lines of 75-90 percent less.

There is no evidence to support IPT as a safe or effective method of treating cancer.

How is it administered?

IPT, which costs in the neighborhood of $15,000 plus another $3-4,000 in follow-up 'maintenance', is typically administered in an office setting--a setting, unfortunately, that will likely not feature any sort of rescusitation equipment should the patient go into shock or have some other reaction. Insulin is administered through an IV; once the patient's blood sugar drops, low amounts of chemotherapy are administered quickly. Then, the patient is given a strong sugar solution to 'arouse' the patient.

Supporters claim that there are none of the expected side effects from chemotherapy.

Web sites touting this treatment often say that its practitioners have undergone IPT training and are either licensed or certified. While there is a two-day training course, it is not licensed or certified by any respectable or official health care agency or body.

Health care professionals stress that people who do not have diabetes should not receive insulin since it can lower one's blood sugar to dangerously low levels and cause serious and often acute health problems.

Sources
Memorial Sloan Kettering
Quackwatch

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